Edible gardening in an art and science that my family loves. It doesn't take much time, but at some moments gardening is a dirty, back breaking hobby. So why do we share the love of growing things? Gardening connects us to nature. Growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables allows us to appreciate beautiful bees, the miracle of a seed sprouting, and life giving rain. Gardening beautifies the surroundings of our home, deck, and porch. Have something to tend gives our family the perfect excuse to spend a few minutes outside each day puttering, weeding, and observing our place on the earth.

Gardening offers physical rewards too. Home grown tomatoes are tastier than anything money can buy. We harvest a wide range of edibles including beans, peas, greens, berries, root vegetables and herbs. Flower blossoms attract birds and butterflies and can be cut for beautiful bouquets.

Producing vegetables, fruits, and flowers in the backyard saves money over buying high quality seasonal produce at the grocery. We enjoy preserving their summer harvest for other seasons by canning vegetables, drying herbs, and pressing flowers. Further, we can grow plants not available at traditional markets, such as heirloom varieties.

In sum, we garden to beautify our world, enjoy tasty edibles, and conserve resources. We humbly carry on the long standing tradition of humans working the earth.

Are you inspired to garden this year? Why? If you want, write down your inspiration or add to the comments section. It might even be fun to post your ideas somewhere in your house to keep you motivated in the dog days of summer.

If you are new to gardening this year, please return to Hounds in the Kitchen every other Tuesday for the rest of the Grow Your Garden series. I will post tutorials about basic garden planning and make assignments. If you follow along, your garden will be planted by May 15, the frost free date in Columbus Ohio.